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Made in au
Fixture of Dakka





Melbourne

So it looks like a 3d printer might be on the cards for my birthday this year. Yay me. Now I know exactly dick about 3d printing so I cannot give any advice to the person buying about what I might need. I'm hoping you fine folk can furnish me with the basics, or at least point me to somewhere that can.

-Are they loud?
-Are they messy?
-How much space do they take up?
-Do they give of noxious fumes?
-What's the upkeep costs of them?
-What sort of learning curve do they have?
-Good brands/Brands to avoid.
-What is a good beginners printer?
-Is there anything else I might need to know or take into consideration?
-Literally anything.
-Anything at all.

Any advice is greatly appreciated and I thank you in advance.

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Under the couch

I have an Anycubic Photon (resin printer) for work and an Anycubic Mega S (filament printer) of my own. I can't say much about other brands, as I haven't tried anything else, but these two are pretty solid... Although Anycubic's customer service is absolutely gakhouse, if that matters.

'Loud' is relative... The filament printer is louder than the resin printer, but I have it on the desk beside my PC and rarely notice it running unless it starts making weird noises. I wouldn't have either machine in a room in which I was trying to sleep.

The resin printer I keep downstairs because the smell of the resin is a bit unpleasant. Different resins are better or worse for that. The resin is also messy and sticky, and not something you want around carpet, kids or animals. The filament printer (unsurprisingly) smells like slightly melted plastic, but it's OK in a well ventilated room.

Space - wise... The photon takes up about as much space as a blender. The mega s is more like the size of an inkjet printer.

Upkeep costs - there will be parts to replace as they wear out... The screens on resin printers go eventually, although better quality screens last longer. And resin printers have a clear plastic film on the bottom of the resin tray that needs to be replaced periodically. You can buy precut films, or can get the same plastic in rolls and cut it to size, which is apparently much cheaper, although I haven't tried that yet.

There's also the cost of the resin or filament. These vary widely in price depending on the brand and material, but are largely interchangeable... You don't have to use specific brands for a given machine.

From my tinkering so far, the filament machine was easier to learn to use and maintain, but the resin is capable of much cleaner prints. If you're looking for gaming-quality miniatures, resin is the way to go. Ideally something capable of .05mm layers or finer.

Resin is also better for batch printing... The time of the print is determined by the layer thickness and the height of the print rather than the number of things being printed whereas with filament it's essentially 'drawing' each layer in tiny lines, so the more stuff on the build plate, the longer it takes. So on the resin printer I'll try to cram as much stuff on the build plate as I can, whereas it's often more productive (and less catastrophic of something goes wrong) with the filament printer to print things one at a time.

The important thing to keep in mind is that 3d printing isn't foolproof. You will have prints not work for no apparent reason. Some for reasons that become easier to spot as you get used to what to look for. But it's still a nice thrill when a print works and you get something cool out of it.

 
   
Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba






 Snrub wrote:
So it looks like a 3d printer might be on the cards for my birthday this year. Yay me. Now I know exactly dick about 3d printing so I cannot give any advice to the person buying about what I might need. I'm hoping you fine folk can furnish me with the basics, or at least point me to somewhere that can.

-Are they loud?
-Are they messy?
-How much space do they take up?
-Do they give of noxious fumes?
-What's the upkeep costs of them?
-What sort of learning curve do they have?
-Good brands/Brands to avoid.
-What is a good beginners printer?
-Is there anything else I might need to know or take into consideration?
-Literally anything.
-Anything at all.

Any advice is greatly appreciated and I thank you in advance.


i mean, resin and plastic printers are two different universes. I have a resin one so I'll answer for that.

Loud - not really. it is audible, but I can have it running while we sleep in the other room and you cant hear it. Its got one little servo motor.

Fumes - there is some concern that the smelly resin is not good to breathe in. I have mine near a window, and I run a little desk fan when ive got the cover removed.

Space - about as much as a medium-sized kitchen appliance. Like a keurig machine or something.

Upkeep costs - Obviously the resin is the big one, thats about 50$ every 100 figures I want to print. I also replace the little plastic "fep" most frequently, those are 5 for like..10 dollars I think. And I've replaced the screen once in a year and a half of ownership, that was 60$.

Learning Curve - steep and annoying tbh. A print failing means a LOT of very careful, methodical cleanup. My advice is to get on a 3d printing discord like make print not war and get your settings numbers DOWN SOLID and start off with some paid, presupported files before you try supporting anything. Treat yourself. There are plenty of high quality patreons out there where you can get like 45 STL files for 15 dollars, enough to run you almost an entire army for wargaming in some cases. Run those and feel good about your investment before you learn to support.

Brands to Avoid - I mean if youre gettnig the printer whatever brand youre getting is what youre getting huh... so for resin I recommend Sirayatech Fast. Its a bit more flexible than other resins - i started with anycubic eco resin, but the stuff is like glass when its fully cured. So brittle.

Anycubic Photon Mono is what I have, and the only one I can speak for. The construction itself is dirt simple. But honestly I think all resin printers are gonna have basically identical learning curves.

Yeah, equip yourself for success. Youre going to want the following programs on your computer:

1) Windows 3d builder (this is free, and should be set as the default program to open 3d files and view them. Its got an auto-repair functionality that fixes like 99% of problems with files in seconds)
2) Autodesk Meshmixer (Also free, a simple program for digital kitbashing and sculpting stuff. Fun to play with!)
3) Lychee (A superior, also I think free, slicing software to the crappy one that comes with the photon. Does exactly the same thing as the "Photon Workshop" but does it better, with less crashing, and less "this was obviously translated from Chinese and I'm confused")

and youre going to want the following physical items

1) rubber gloves
2) paper towels
3) Spare plastic scrapers, spare FEP film - just sucks to break a dumb little object and have to stop what youre doing, so always have a spare one
4) 70% isopropyl alcohol
5) if you happen to have on hand an ultrasonic cleaner (some people have them for jewelry, I had one for stripping models) or a UV light lamp (some people have these for drying nail polish) these are conveniences for the cleaning and curing process. You can clean just...in a bucket with an old toothbrush and you can cure obviously in the sun, but if you live in the blighted north like I do sun can be difficult to come by.


"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"

"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"

"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"

"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"  
   
Made in gb
Leader of the Sept







I would echo all the above.

Regarding filament printers in particular, the cheaper you go, the more that the printer itself is the hobby. Things like auto-levelling, heated build plates and suchlike that actually make them readily usable are something that the user needs to add themselves, otherwise filament printing is a very finnicky business indeed. If you are after something to actually produce models reliably, then it is worth investing a bit more in the printer itself. I went for a Prusa, which is at the pricier end of the scale, but is an absolute workhorse.

Resin-wise, it is not just a bad smell as the resins are toxic, but the risk of exposure can be managed relatively easily, and I don;t believe it to be substantially different to any of the other industrial and domestic chemicals that you don't really want on your skin or in your eyes and lungs.


Please excuse any spelling errors. I use a tablet frequently and software keyboards are a pain!

Terranwing - w3;d1;l1
51st Dunedinw2;d0;l0
Cadre Coronal Afterglow w1;d0;l0 
   
Made in us
Courageous Questing Knight





Texas

Agree with all above, but I found my resin printer much easier to get perfect prints than the FDM. For resin, as long as you are level and you supported your model well (learn about supports!!!), you can find adequate print settings online and just slice and go. FDM has SO many different fiddling issues to get the filament going smoothly, without stringing, keeping all sticking to the build plate, temperature flow for filament, etc. But, FDM is much cheaper than resin.

I had an Elegoo Mars that was so great I went with the bigger Saturn a few months back and love it even better. I probably had close to 1000 print runs on my Mars and I did go through a few LCD screens, which are fairly cheap and easy to replace.
My FDM is an Ender 3 Pro and I moved up to this from an A8 clone kit that I assembled, so learned a lot about the machine and the process, but the Ender is a superb machine and I think both the Elegoo and the Enders are the best out there at their price points. Also, Elegoo service is fantastic!
Look up some videos online about the print process and you will learn a ton about getting going. And I will say the free Chitubox slicer for the Elegoo is a really great slicer and works super well and easy to learn. I use Cura for the FDM slicer, which works well, too. I have not used Lychee or others, so can't say on those.
As far as deciding which printer, definitely a resin for miniature models and figures with the FDM for larger terrain or just big pieces. But, keep in mind the detail/quality difference is no comparison, the resin will be a much better looking print and take a fraction of the time to print compared to a hi-res FDM print.

You can also search this forum and so many other threads on this topic with lots of advice.

And, the_scotsman is right on +++++1 for 3D Builder!!

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/12/02 14:33:18


My Novella Collection is available on Amazon - Action/Fantasy/Sci-Fi - https://www.amazon.com/Three-Roads-Dreamt-Michael-Leonard/dp/1505716993/

 
   
Made in au
Fixture of Dakka





Melbourne

Thank you all. That's a fair wack of info to go through but it gives me a good start.
Resin seems like the better choice for me.

Anycubic is currently haveing a sale on and I can get a photon mono for cheaps.
https://www.anycubic.com/collections/anycubic-photon-3d-printers/products/photon-mono-resin-3d-printer

Is this a reasonable beginners printer? The reviews on it are positive and with the sale on it makes it an attractive prospect. Is there a better option for a similar price point?




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Leader of the Sept







It is my first and current resin printer. It was easy to use and has been providing great and consistent results, after I dialled the exposure settings in properly.

Please excuse any spelling errors. I use a tablet frequently and software keyboards are a pain!

Terranwing - w3;d1;l1
51st Dunedinw2;d0;l0
Cadre Coronal Afterglow w1;d0;l0 
   
Made in us
Courageous Questing Knight





Texas

That Photon Mono with the monochrome LCD at $159 looks like a great deal. Others can attest to how good their customer service is, if needed.

My Novella Collection is available on Amazon - Action/Fantasy/Sci-Fi - https://www.amazon.com/Three-Roads-Dreamt-Michael-Leonard/dp/1505716993/

 
   
Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba






Absolutely, the mono is a solid, simple, reliable machine. In the year and three months ive owned it ive replaced the screen once (do yourself a favor and pick up a screen protector to extend that lifespan!) and the replacement was incredibly smooth.

There is one slight "Iphonely" trick that anycubic pulls with their vat where theyve got this pre-assembled FEP sheet instead of just letting you replace it with 1$/per sheets of plastic from amazon you have to buy from them for like 10$.

It does make the replacement more foolproof if youre not a particularly handy person, but it annoyed me personally. I ended up getting an alternative vat from amazon for like 35$ that can take normal FEP sheets.

otherwise everything htat comes with the photon mono gets my thumbs up.

"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"

"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"

"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"

"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"  
   
Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

A few thoughts on getting started with Resin printing:


Safety:
You will need
a) Disposable Nitrile gloves - don't get latex as it gets eaten into too quickly by resin. If you want them cheaper search for "expired" nitrile gloves as they will be perfectly fine for home use, they are just "expired" for their sterile treatment for medical/scientific use and get sold on cheaper by labs/hospitals and the like who just need to get rid of them

b) A face mask (mouth and nose) that filters organic particles.

c) Eye protection

In general resin is nasty stuff when in its liquid state. It's not "alien melt your skin" nasty, but prolonged exposure can cause chemical burns. It will vary, some people have more of a reaction than others. Note that it also has a cumulative effect, so some new to 3D printing will say you don't have to worry and touch wet resin without any apparent effect, however over time that will have an impact and suddenly they will have a reaction.

Please don't let this put you off, a simple case of wearing gloves, glasses and mask when handling wet, uncured resin and being sensible when handling it makes it very safe. You just have to be aware of the risk and take proper steps.

Note that because of vapours you will want to keep it out of a room you are in all the time unless you can enclose the printer and then vent the fumes outside.


Other accessories.
1) Silicon dog feeding mat or other raised lip surface. This just helps keep the work area easily clean. Especially when you get started you'll make more mess until you get used to things.

2) Plastic funnel and paper resin filters. This is for putting resin from the VAT back into the resin bottle. You need the funnel (fairly largeish since paper filters will NOT hold up on their own (believe me I forgot the plastic funnel - once - and it made a huge mess everywhere).
You might find you have to do this a bit more at the start so it good to have these.

3) IPA - at least 70%, greater values work great too. In general most resins clean with this, except water washables which are their own thing.

4) Paper towels - You can get a bundle of "big blue" paper towels for pretty low costs and they will last you a good while. These are generally for cleaning everything EXCEPT the VAT, FEP and LCD screen.
Note people will say you get through a lot of this, in my experience htis is true when you get started because you're more likely to clean everything down and start fresh due to a fail or such. As you gain in experience and familiarity they become less heavily used, but still important.

5) Microfibre cloths (disposable floor cloths are good for this). These are the soft wipes that you can use on the VAT, FEP and LCD. Note whilst the VAT itself is durable, as the FEP is connected to it, it is safer to use microfibre when wiping it down.

6) White Lithium Grease - this is for lubricating the Z axis screwthread and is an important step. You don't have to lube it every time, but as it moves constantly and does most of the mechanical work you want to keep it will lubricated.
Try to avoid sprays as they won't last as long and are more difficult to apply without getting the spray everywhere (I've used them and when I applied them I'd wrap a bit of cloth around the rod where I was spraying so that any that didn't land on the rod got splattered into the cloth)

7) Note that most printers come with a metal scraper; note that some of these are flat fronted not angled (sharp). If you get a blunt one either swap it for a sharpened one or sharpen yourself. This is used to scrape prints off the build plate. A blunt one will be a nightmare, a slight angle so that its got some edge and you'll scrape prints off easily.

8) Plastic razor - not essential but helpful as the soft plastic blade can be used on the LCD if you get a resin leak and resin cured on the screen. Note always soften any resin on the screen with IPA first to help the process.

8) Silicon spatula. When you are pouring resin from the VAT into a filter and funnel a silicon spatula is soft enough to not harm the FEP, but firm enough to help scrape the resin out of the VAT. Speeds things up no end!

9) Washing setup. A Wash and Cure station can be bought and makes it easier/quicker/more reliable but isn't essential. Plastic pickle jars are also used. Get two and then you put IPA in both. One washes, one then rinses. When the rinsing one shows a cloud of resin coming off you know your wash is too contaminated to work and your rinse becomes your wash and you replace the IPA in the original wash and it is now your rinse.

Note even if you get a wash and cure the pickle jars are still good to get - you still have a rinsing one then and the plastic cages are handy to have as the metal meshes in most wash and cures are very wide gapped so smaller prints can fall through them.

10) Curing solution - a box with lots of UV LED's; 405 wavelength is the most typical but it doesn't have to be perfect. UV torches, UV nail curing strips (can be a problem as many auto-shut off very quickly for resin printing) or a wash and cure station.

Note if you got with torches and such consider getting UV safety glasses. That way you've got UV eye protection and resin eye protection all in one.




Off the top of my head that should get you started

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Fresh-Faced New User




im no tree hugger by any means but you also have to take into consideration to please save contaminated liquids in jars and take to recycle center, dont poor that down the drain or rinse your models in the sink.

the UV active compound in it is very nasty. they make "organic" resin which is marketed as environmentally friendly but this is just blatant false advertising, as it is the UV compound that is totally toxic (it inhibits the nervous system of aquatic life and kills them, who knows what it does to the brains of kids drinking/brushing teeth with the ground water)

but get printing! best hobby choice i ever made was a 3d resin printer

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/12/08 01:33:10


 
   
Made in au
Fixture of Dakka





Melbourne

Thanks for all the input everyone, and apologies for the belated reply. Been utterly smashed at work and haven't had a chance to go through this in full.

So I ended up getting the Photon Mono and a kg of resin to go with it. REALLY quick delivery time. It took like 5 days to get here. But now it's just sitting forlornly in the lounge room, unopened waiting for my birthday. How terribly cruel of the postal system to be that efficient.


 the_scotsman wrote:
There is one slight "Iphonely" trick that anycubic pulls with their vat where theyve got this pre-assembled FEP sheet instead of just letting you replace it with 1$/per sheets of plastic from amazon you have to buy from them for like 10$.
So is there a roll of generic sheeting you can get for the Mono, or do you have to use the pre-cut sheets? If there is, any recommendations?

sandor1988 wrote:
dont poor that down the drain or rinse your models in the sink.
That was a consideration I had. I didn't really like the thought of putting that stuff into the stormwater system. Luckily I have really good recycling centre not far for me. They can deal with all sorts of gakky chemicals.

 Overread wrote:
A few thoughts on getting started with Resin printing:
Thank you for the comprehensive parts list, Overread!

Safety:
b) A face mask (mouth and nose) that filters organic particles.

Note that because of vapours you will want to keep it out of a room you are in all the time unless you can enclose the printer and then vent the fumes outside.
I plan on putting the printer out in the garage which is easily aired out if need be. So hopefully shouldn't be too much of an issue

When you say face masks, what sort are you referring to?
These common blue ones.
Builders dust masks.
Or something a bit more Heavy Duty like this?

Other accessories.
2)paper resin filters

4) Paper towels - You can get a bundle of "big blue" paper towels for pretty low costs and they will last you a good while

6) White Lithium Grease

8) Plastic razor
2. Are these the filters you're talking about? Is there any particular reason you need both type of filter? Would not just the larger plastic filter be fine?

4. Not sure if this is one of those regional variations in name situations, but are these what you mean by blue paper towels or just the standard type of paper towel.

6. I've had some trouble finding White Lithium Grease in a non-aerosol form. Any particular brands you can point to?

8. I'm not sure what a plastic razor is in relation to 3d printing. All search results I get are for disposable razor handles or articles on types of plastic used in 3d printing.

9) Washing setup.

10) Curing solution.
9. Ok, so I'm liking the whole "pickle jar" thing. That works for me. How much use do you get out of a jar of IPA before it needs to be disposed of? Is it a one and done type thing or can you use the same IPA a few times before it loses it's effectiveness? And for larger prints that might not fit in a jar, is spraying IPA on them with a bottle like this and then scrubbing with a brush going to effectively clean them?

10. As far as curing a mini goes, we're coming into summer here in Oz, which means i've got a feth-ton of very high UV light at my disposal (Thanks hole in the ozone layer! ). How long do you need to leave a print out in the sun to properly cure it?


Thanks again, everyone!

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Under the couch

 Snrub wrote:

8. I'm not sure what a plastic razor is in relation to 3d printing. All search results I get are for disposable razor handles or articles on types of plastic used in 3d printing.

Not sure about the plastic razor - I just use a regular razor blade. Obviously you have to be careful to not scratch the screen, but is in generally the easiest way to clean off things that are stuck to glass.

The razorblades also come in handy for getting stubborn prints dislodged from the build plate.


Ok, so I'm liking the whole "pickle jar" thing. That works for me. How much use do you get out of a jar of IPA before it needs to be disposed of? Is it a one and done type thing or can you use the same IPA a few times before it loses it's effectiveness? And for larger prints that might not fit in a jar, is spraying IPA on them with a bottle like this and then scrubbing with a brush going to effectively clean them?

I don't think spraying the IPA on would be particularly effective. I'd go with a large bowl in that case.

I generally store my current 'washing' IPA in an old glass gherkin jar. I'll scrape the parts off the build plate into an icecream container, pour enough IPA out of the jar to cover them, let them sit for a minute or so and then swish them around a bit before pulling them out and giving them a quick rinse in cold water so they don't smell of IPA when I take them upstairs, and then tip the IPA back into the jar.

The IPA lasts quite a while so long as you don't leave it out with the lid off for extended periods. It will pick up bits of resin as you use it, but these settle to the bottom of the jar, so if you tip carefully for washing they stay in there and aren't a problem. If you want to be more fussy, you can strain it periodically. For disposal, pop the jar out in the sun for a while and the resin will solidify.

10. As far as curing a mini goes, we're coming into summer here in Oz, which means i've got a feth-ton of very high UV light at my disposal (Thanks hole in the ozone layer! ). How long do you need to leave a print out in the sun to properly cure it?

About 10 minutes or so usually does the trick. Supposedly, too long can cause parts to crack from over-curing, although I accidentally left a mini outside for three days a while back and it was fine...

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/12/16 04:04:02


 
   
Made in gb
Leader of the Sept







The mono uses specially shaped FEP sheets with pre-cut holes and built in stiffeners. I don’t think you can get generic ones. However, you can buy 3rd party resin vats that fit and take generic FEP.

Regarding filters, yes those are the ones. You can get very tiny resin inclusions in the liquid that could cause damage do the FEP or screen if the build plate tries to crush them when it homes. Best to be able to filter them out.

Jealous about the UV in this instance. In winter In Scotland, you can leave the things in the window for several days and the buggers still won’t be fully cured…

Please excuse any spelling errors. I use a tablet frequently and software keyboards are a pain!

Terranwing - w3;d1;l1
51st Dunedinw2;d0;l0
Cadre Coronal Afterglow w1;d0;l0 
   
Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

Congrats on the new printer!!

1) For the face masks the key is the organic particle filtering, which means it will be more "heavy duty" like you've linked rather than the lighter ones (which are more for larger dust particles). It does put the price up, but as you'll only use it in short bursts it will last a pretty long time before you have to replace it/its mask cartridges.

2) Those are indeed the filters. The reason you need both filters and a funnel is because the filter ensures that you don't accidentally end up getting small particles (eg little bits of cured resin that broke off a print or bits of a failed print) poured back into the reisn bottle. Random floating bits of gunk will cause failures.
This is one of those things that when you start you'll use more of because you will get more failures as you make mistakes and experiment. There's a neat trick though to cleaning the VAT if you get a fail and getting it all out without having to drain out the VAT, have a watch of this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKzkQZOczVI

4) https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASPECT-Centrefeed-Supplier-Commercial-Kitchen/dp/B08LZPR212

That would be the kind of blue paper towel I mean. Cheap and not quite as high grade as the kind you linked too. Which would honestly work just fine, but there's no need for high absorbency or such. Most of the time you'll just be wiping smears of resin up off things; though a better grade would work well if you have a spill.

6) I found a tube of Lucas Oil 10533 White Lithium Grease on amazon, though yes now I do a quick search to find it again there are a lot of rattle-can variations out there. Might be something a bigger online hardware store has in stock or just ask around at your local hardware store as they like as not will have suppliers and can order it in. As long as you keep the cap on when not using it, it will last you for ages.

8) I've honestly not used them myself, its something I've picked up that others use, though honestly the VAT cleaning video I posted before is a much easier way to work.

9) Spraying IPA on won't really work, the cleaning action comes more from the agitation of the IPA swirling around the model and washing the resin off. Scrubbing with a very worn and soft tooth brush can help, but resin in its part cured state can be more susceptible to scratches. I do know people who do use a toothbrush for cleaning aid, but at the same time its not something I've found a need to do.

Bigger prints would likely just mean a bigger sealed tub to wash in. I believe there are bigger pickle type jars (sealed jars) that you can get for that. Also don't forget a lot of bigger models are often broken down into smaller parts (many slice things for the Mars size printer buildplates - which are on the smaller end). I've personally not encountered this problem with the picklejars as yet, but I've not printed any huge flat wings for things either so I might have just skipped it (and I wouldn't have to think of dealing with it now as I have a wash+cure machine).

9b) As for how much IPA I got 8 or 10 1l bottles when starting and have slowly worked through them. You do get more than one wash out of it. Basically my method is to have 2 containers of IPA. One is a wash, one is a rinse.
I pop the model off the build plate and put it and its supports into the wash IPA and wash it. This gets the majority of the resin off.
I then take the model out, remove it from its supports and put the model only into the rinsing container.
Basically you then keep an eye on it whilst shaking/agitating the IPA as you wash. If clouds of resin start coming off you know that your washing IPA bottle is too heavily contaminated to work. So your Rinse becomes your Wash and you swap out the original washing IPA with fresh IPA and its now your rinsing.


Contaminated IPA can be left in the sun to evaporate and any residue also cured before disposing. Which is a big bonus of IPA over water (water washable resins) because IPA evaporates very readily.
You can also leave contaminated IPA in the sunlight for weeks in a clear sealed bottle. This will cure all the small bits of resin. Then you just pour it through a coffee filter to filter out the little bits of resin and you can re-use that IPA. It will get a little coloured but it will still work for several more cycles before degrading too far.

10) If you cure in sunlight place the model (fully washed of course) in water. Water basically helps scatter the sunlight and can improve the curing speed and progress because the light gets in everywhere all over the model.

From everything I've learned you basically cannot over-cure a model*. The resin simply cures to its final states and then stays there. However a fair few resins are more brittle when fully cured so some people slightly under-cure so that the model is a touch less brittle. They often mistake curing the model fully as "over" curing because it attains properties that they find undesirable (increased brittle nature). This really varies a bit in reporting because different resins will have a different final state and different owners have different standards. I think many from a wargaming background will be fine with more brittle resins - those from a more DnD background (thus used to more durable and chunky PVC models) might not. It also varies on the sculpt, in my observation there's a lot more "true scale" stuff floating around in 3D printing (which is partly a result of many being from the videogame background than model sculpting background); so you can get a lot of very thin parts that, if it were sculpted, would have been made "oversized" for durability (and so it actually cast).


The cracking mentioned is unlikely from over-curing. Cracking on models is most times caused by wet resin (uncured) inside the model which reacts with cured resin and "eats" through it. This is why if you have hollow models you need draining holes of at least 5mm diameter or wider in at least two spots. This allows you to flush IPA through it when washing so that it can clean out the wet resin inside. And so that there's room to get UV light into the model to cure the insides. There's a few UV LED strip lights and such slowly coming into the market that help with this or you can make your own with UV LEDs. If you can't get big enough holes into the model - don't hollow it. Small holes will not drain right and will just dribble resin for AGES and never really work. The tiny saving in resin isn't worth that mess.


*Leaving it in UV for days/weeks/months/years likely would cause degradation after time, but then you're well into extremes that you won't encounter normally and which would likely be degrading other materials as well.

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Texas

Depending on the size of your prints you may find just simple tupperware containers for your rinsing will work. I use the two bin system, where I have containers that are at least the size of the build plate, so it can all go in all at once. The first bin is the slightly dirtier one and swish it around for 15-20 seconds, then into the second bin that is kept cleaner and swish around again - comes out perfect. Once the second bin gets a bit dirty, it gets shifted to the first bin and the old first bin that is really dirty by now gets cleaned out and refilled with fresh IPA to become the second bin.

My Novella Collection is available on Amazon - Action/Fantasy/Sci-Fi - https://www.amazon.com/Three-Roads-Dreamt-Michael-Leonard/dp/1505716993/

 
   
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Fixture of Dakka





Melbourne

Once again, thank you all for the sound advice.

Despite having had the Mono a week now, I've only just yesterday had the chance to set it up and fiddle with it.
Two things immediately sprung out at me. 1. The quality of the machine itself is excellent. Nothing feels plasticy or cheap about it despite being a cheaper model. 2. Its REALLY user friendly. Set up was a breeze and the controls are simple. Which is great for someone not suuuper tech-savvy like myself.

I learnt a few lessons right off the bat.
Lesson 1. You won't build gak if you don't take the protective plastic covering off the build plate.

Lesson 2. When you get resin on your gloves, don't hold them up in the sun to see how quickly the resin cures. That gak burns like a bastard.


With those rookie errors out of the way, I then happened upon my 3rd lesson.
Lesson 3. You won't build gak if you don't take the other protective plastic covering off the LCD screen. That resulted (I believe) in this, my first failed build.



It's built the whole thing on the same plane (?). So what should be a lattice cube, is now a future terrain feature. It looks sort of like a bit of grating or flooring.


So after an 1.5 hours spent building nothing, and 4 hours spent on a misfire. 3rd time was the charm!


It is... ALIVE!

Another 4 hours and 3 minutes later and it is doneskies.



Just have to wash and cure it now and then find something else to print.

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Looking good

After a first few fun trials, I can highly recommend using this test to dial in your resin curing settings. If you use Lychee, it even uploads your saved resin settings into the cloud, so you can share them between devices, and when you re-install new versions of the software, it automatically retrieves them.

https://mega.nz/file/ZBxAXJjK#PJCPDXaxDLOzN9nIhiKVsoHvKZEGMCHmCM_BXS-sJ90

My own experience is here:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/120/783822.page#11151978

Please excuse any spelling errors. I use a tablet frequently and software keyboards are a pain!

Terranwing - w3;d1;l1
51st Dunedinw2;d0;l0
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Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

AMERALABS TOWN

https://atlas3dss.com/learn

There's a link there to download it and a video to help you start understanding how to read it. It's a quick (small) calibration print that works very well for helping you dial in your resin.


WELCOME to the world of 3D printing!

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Excellent. Now build a small shrine to your cube of false confidence and offer it up all your failures and lumpen monstrosities so that it may grant you good fortune.

Step 1: get a good slicer. Most people seem to like Lychee as it has the best auto-supports in the biz. Apparently. IDK, I use Chitubox and just manually support everything, but then again I am a CAD designer by trade and am a massive snob about my supports and hate it when I cant just impatiently rip my model off the supports instantly like the smallbrain monke i am.

Step 2: I'd bump up your exposure setting a little bit, I think by default its at like 2s, maybe up to about 3s-2.5s. Also, lift speed, down to about 3mm/s, you can crank up the return speed but lift speed is a big thing that causes failures. up your Bottom Layers to about 8 and your bottom layer time to about 40s - basically a little extra patience with print time will go a long way when it comes to not having failures stuck to the bottom of your vat.

When it comes to your supports...my first lesson is going to be to treat yoself a little bit.

There are gak tons of patreons like Archvillain, Dragon Trappers Lodge etc that will literally give you like 2 dozen DROP DEAD GORGEOUS pre-supported museum quality sculpts for like 15$. Get a couple of those, and as you try to learn how to do supports yourself, make some of those.

That will teach you a couple things. 1 - how do the pros set their models up to support? How do their things look fully suppoorted? What angles are they printing at. and also 2, more importantly - while you are failing you'll have some very pretty gorgeous things to paint to remind you of why you bought this ding dang machine.

"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"

"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"

"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"

"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"  
   
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Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

The first question when it comes to supporting models is what kind of models you want first Dragon Trappers Lodge and Archvillain gamess are fantastic, but all fantasy (more or less DTL is doing "Mad Max" themes in January). If you want sci-fi or 75mm or dragons or terrain or alternative models for a major wargame - then there are other options


Note both those firms (far as I recall) both use "Atlas" (the firm who's page I linked to in my previous post) to do their support work.




Also Scotsman I'm surprised you've not tried lychee - the pro mode (which is cheaper than chitu pro) has WAY more customising options for supports.

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Melbourne

Hello all, i'm back with a few more questions! I've not had a whole lot of time for hobby related stuff recently so i'm still plodding along learning the basics of this 3d printing malarkey.

As suggested I downloaded Lychee and that Ameralabs town test print. But I've encounted a few problems with the Ameralabs test print though and I can't figure out whats going on. I'm pretty sure I've been doing the right thing in Lychee to prep the print (i.e the raft and supports) so I don't see why it's not translating well when it comes to printing. Below are just 2 of about 6 attempts I made and all of them failed. Any suggestions as to what might be causing this?

Spoiler:

In my frustration I decided to attempt a different print. I found that the USB that comes supplied with the printer also had what I assume is a calibration print. So I gave that a go. It turned out fine as far as I can tell although i'm not sure if it was supposed to print eight of them or not.
Spoiler:
With that said i'm not really sure what information i'm supposed to glean from the print in regards to fine tuning that operations of the printer. Should I be looking for some specific tell-tale on these things?


This though has bought me to another hurdle. I'm not sure if i've missed something basic along the way, but how am i meant to get prints off the build plate without shattering them? I've already chipped a good segment off the corner of one of these little things trying to bust it off. Previous mis-prints i've just brute force to get them off. It wasn't until now that i've actually got something worth saving that it made me stop and think about how to get them off cleanly without damage. The earlier lattice cube print just sort of popped off with out much effort. These.... not so much.
And as a side bar to this question, should the build plate be getting all scratched up from the metal scraper? I'm not sure i'm being to rough and damaging it or not.
Spoiler:


And finally, If I was going to pick up a UV torch what should i be looking for? Most of the UV torches I can find on ebay run at 395nM wavelength. Now I know the mono prints at 405nM wavelength so if I get one at 395nM is that going to work for curing prints or do I need a 405nM torch? And to that end is more LEDs better then fewer? Is this 51 LED unit going to work much better then this 9 LED one? If more's better then should i just fork out an extra $8 and get this beast.


Again, thanks for all the help and advice!

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Texas

My thoughts, but others may surely have differing opinions...

Your supports need to ever so slightly penetrate the model to stick, so if it only just barely touches it could break off when pulled, leaving you with the unsupported mess you show. I am not at my other computer now to look at my support depth setting, but it is important to check it is not set to something so small or 0. Here is a good resource to read through: https://www.chitubox.com/en/article/support/howto/chitubox-free/supports/23

Also, set your support bases to I think it is called 'skate' - which gives it a slight angle and makes it easy to get your spatula under to easily lift off your prints. I only used a metal scraper ONCE on my build plate and never again, as it will scratch it no matter how careful you are. Use the plastic scraper and buy a few, they are super cheap.

If you have the skate support base the plastic scraper gets under super easy and you will never have a need to use a metal one. In fact, when I got my Saturn, I immediately put the metal scraper I got out in the garage as a putty knife, never to approach my printer again.

I picked up a 60w 405u LED UV light on Amazon a couple of years ago for about $20 (https://www.amazon.com/Printer-Curing-Solidify-Photosensitive-Enclosue/dp/B08253Q266/ref) and have it in a plastic bin lined with tin foil and a Stanley timer (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BV34WSK/ref), so I can set it to run for a short time. This works great for me.

I am a big fan of the JSI Wundel print test, so here is the one I use for exposure settings and it is super quick to print: https://mega.nz/file/ZBxAXJjK#PJCPDXaxDLOzN9nIhiKVsoHvKZEGMCHmCM_BXS-sJ90 - be sure to check your test without curing.

Actually, as I was going through my Amazon orders looking for some of these links to the products I referenced, I was shocked at how many bottles of resin I have gone through over the last 2-3 years - and I also got many bottles as gifts, so not even on my order history. Gads, I must have gone through more than 50 liters... Houston, I may have a problem...

My Novella Collection is available on Amazon - Action/Fantasy/Sci-Fi - https://www.amazon.com/Three-Roads-Dreamt-Michael-Leonard/dp/1505716993/

 
   
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Regular Dakkanaut




Berlin

The Ameralabs Test should be placed on the print plate. Try printing it without using supports.

It's difficult to see anything on that transparent resin. So no idea what the calibration print shows.

Prints not getting off the build plate, might be caused by too long exposure time for the first layers. Try lowering it.
If this is not the case it helps to use a raft with slanted edges. It looks like an inverted plinth. Your tool can go "under" it and pry the model off.
If nothing helps get a flexible build plate.

What do you need an UV torch for ? For curing after print they are not really practical. Better to have a curing chamber even a self made one. Anyway usually more power is better. This is not necessarily a question of the number of Leds. There are Leds with as much UV-output as 10 others. Besides uv-output the area covered by the uv light may be important, depending on your use case.
   
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Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

So a few thoughts

1) As noted the Amerlabs Town print doesn't need any supports - check the link I posted for more information. But you should be just putting it on the build plate and printing.

2) Clear resin can be hard to see details on and harder still to photograph, but again check the link I posted earlier for the video on how to get started reading the town print

3) The build plate is going to get scuffed up and that is NOT a bad thing. Think about how you score join areas when using superglue; a roughed up surface on the build plate does the same thing and just helps raft adhesion. The only issues are if you REALLY cut into it and leave deep gashs.

4) A lot of the metal scrapers they put with printers tend to have a blunt flat front to them which makes them terrible at getting stuff off the build plate. You want an angled front edge so it slices under and that will make it work a LOT better. Metal is fine and works well and with an angled front edge they will work great.


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Just be careful with the sharper scrapers. I have a lovely scar on my palm when moment of inattention when removing a particularly stubborn raft led to significant bleeding…

I can highly recommend the flexible plate systems because at the very least they let you put the build surface fully horizontal to get decent purchase rather than having to deal with the awkwardly shaped main plate. Less chance of wrecking your levelling as well

Please excuse any spelling errors. I use a tablet frequently and software keyboards are a pain!

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UK

 MDSW wrote:
My thoughts, but others may surely have differing opinions...

Your supports need to ever so slightly penetrate the model to stick, so if it only just barely touches it could break off when pulled, leaving you with the unsupported mess you show. I am not at my other computer now to look at my support depth setting, but it is important to check it is not set to something so small or 0. Here is a good resource to read through: https://www.chitubox.com/en/article/support/howto/chitubox-free/supports/23



Actually support depth or penetration (as its often called in slicers) doesn't actually do that.

When you view supports in the slicer it colours the supports a different colour so you can see what is happening, however when you slice and print the mode all the printer sees is regions to expose and not expose to the same level of light. So the only part of a "support" that is going to be a support is the part touching the model. The part "inside" is just resin that is part of the model. It has no different properties, values or anything.


However what does happen, and why people think penetration helps, is that most supports are a cone shape. This means as the smallest point, the tip, gets moved inside the model, the area in contact with the outside of the model slightly increases. So you do get increased hold, not because the tip is penetrating the model, but because the surface area in contact with the surface of the model is greater. You would get the exact same hold just making the tip a little larger and setting penetration to 0.

However it gets worse for penetration, because if the tip is pushing past the surface of the mode it can end up either with the tip wrapping around the part (eg supporting the point of a tooth); or even pushing right past one side and out the other. Ergo you actually increase damage to the model.



Penetration has its place, but its not a generic setting you should be using for everything. It's a specialist value not a generalist.

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My 2p worth....

I've only been doing this since New Years Day, so definitely a noob, but I'm now at the point where I'm not seeing failures at all (rather than about 75% when I started).

1) Lots of supports. I use chitubox, have the light supports set to 65% density (which is high) and still manually add more. The extra "waste" on resin has been offset by not having failures at all (time, resin/frustration). I have a lifetime of working with metal models, so tidying up resin ones is no effort by comparison. Because I am a Neanderthal, I am happy to mostly rip the supports off by hand, resorting to scalpel for delicate bits.
2) Increase base exposure time. The printer's default was 30secs, I increased it to 40.
3) Moved from 50 micron to 30 micron to make a nicer/smoother model. This has meant lowering the exposure time (2.5 sec down to 2 sec)
4) As noted above, lowering the lift speed so there isn't as much "force" pulling your print of the FEP each print cycle. This makes prints take longer, but I don't mind. Most prints take several hours or overnight, depending on height of the "tallest" item.
5) I use the cheap grey resin, as it is fairly easy to see detail/defects and I will be painting over it anyway. I'm no expert, but it seems to me that using translucent resin is doing this on "hard mode" - partly because its harder to see detail of the print, also because there may be odd effects on the penetration/scattering of UV into the resin?
6) Echo the above about safety when using a metal scraper to remove print from the build plate, learnt the hard way. 40 seconds of expose time bakes the print on, so I am rough with it, and the plate itself is quite marked. Given I always use a raft, this causes me no problem. Replacement plates on sale at Amazon.
7) I advise to get a washing station rather than clean manually. I have had one from day 1 and it is worth every penny.
   
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General pro tip from me to you as someone who also started with the green translucent resin: The more translucent a resin is the harder it is to get details perfect.

if youre planning on, say, priming right over the resin and painting the thing...get yourself an opaque resin.

The UV light tends to penetrate through clear resins, warping details and messing up prints that would run perfectly without it.

"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"

"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"

"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"

"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"  
   
Made in us
Courageous Questing Knight





Texas

 Overread wrote:
 MDSW wrote:
My thoughts, but others may surely have differing opinions...

Your supports need to ever so slightly penetrate the model to stick, so if it only just barely touches it could break off when pulled, leaving you with the unsupported mess you show. I am not at my other computer now to look at my support depth setting, but it is important to check it is not set to something so small or 0. Here is a good resource to read through: https://www.chitubox.com/en/article/support/howto/chitubox-free/supports/23



Actually support depth or penetration (as its often called in slicers) doesn't actually do that.



Yes, as penetration was probably not the best word to use, but you and I are talking about the same thing. If you do not have the tip of your support securely touching the model, it will break off when the build plate pulls off of the FEP and not work. You just want more than the extreme teeny tiny end of the support holding onto your model.

My Novella Collection is available on Amazon - Action/Fantasy/Sci-Fi - https://www.amazon.com/Three-Roads-Dreamt-Michael-Leonard/dp/1505716993/

 
   
 
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